"Some bootleg versions of Eat the Document include a long scene featuring Dylan in a limousine with John Lennon on 27 May 1966. As Dylan shows signs of fatigue, and may be impaired by alcohol or drugs, Lennon urges him to get a grip on himself: "Do you suffer from sore eyes, groovy forehead, or curly hair? Take Zimdawn!...Come, come, boy, it's only a film. Pull yourself together." Lennon would later recall in an interview with Rolling Stone that he and Dylan were "both in shades, and both on fucking junk, and all these freaks around us... I was nervous as shit. I was on his territory, that's why I was so nervous.""

"Despite having no filmmaking training, Dylan decided to re-edit the film himself, assisted by longtime associate Howard Alk and with (uncredited) assistant editor Gordon Quinn, co-founder of Kartemquin Films. Pennebaker stated: "It's not something you learn parking cars in a garage. You gotta know some of the rules and he didn't know any of the rules." Dylan and Alk's cut was eventually shown to ABC television, who promptly rejected it as incomprehensible to a mainstream audience."

"D.A. Pennebaker visited Dylan at his Woodstock home in 1967, during the latter's retreat from music [and music deals arranged by his estranged manager], and was horrified to find that Dylan, with Robbie Robertson, had been editing the footage without making a safety film copy first, losing large amounts of the material Pennebaker had shot forever."

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